Chapter 144 Asking for Prices at the Market
The market in the survivor base in City G is indeed very large.
The space is square and surrounded by shops. Use a worn blackboard or cloth to write the main categories so that customers can see them at a glance.
These shops vary in size, and the monthly rent varies depending on the area. To save money, many shop owners do not rent a separate room, but sleep directly in the shop.
There's a large open space in the middle of the market, where small vendors are allowed to set up stalls. Unlike shops, stalls are rented on a daily basis. Vendors don't have to pay monthly rent; they simply hand in two crystal cores to the management office at the entrance before setting up their stalls. These two crystal cores are enough for a full day's operation.
The base is very strict on this point.
The market has a single gate, and everyone entering must pass through the gatekeepers. Anyone carrying more than five items or a large sum will be stopped and asked to pay a daily rental fee. If the number of items is less than five, and the amount is not large, the administrator will register the information. Anyone caught repeatedly entering and leaving the market with small amounts of goods will also be required to pay the daily rental fee and may even be fined.
When Qiao Yu and his four companions arrived at the market, they all came empty-handed, so they did not need to register and were allowed to pass directly.
The shops here had just opened for business. A number of small vendors had gradually arrived in the open space. They sold a wide variety of goods, but most of them were shabby.
The vendors would use a larger piece of cloth or blanket to cover their goods, and after paying the daily rent, they would find a place in the open space in the middle to spread out their goods and start business right away.
The items they sell can be purchased with crystal cores or directly exchanged for things the vendors need.
It wasn't long before Qiao Yu and the others noticed that more and more people were coming in. It was obvious that the flow of people here was very large.
Qiao Yu observed carefully and found that whether it was the surrounding shops or the stalls in the middle, the food stores had the largest flow of customers.
Even some small vendors who sell daily necessities very well will take the crystal cores they earned to grocery stores to spend after selling their goods.
Qiao Yu and the other four went to a few larger grocery stores and found that they sold a wide variety of food. They had rice, flour, grains, oil, instant noodles, bread, and fast food, but the quantity was not large.
Some rice and flour have become moldy or infested with insects, but they are still being sold and are basically the best-selling ones.
Because the price will be cheaper than those rice and flour that look good.
Qiao Yu entered a grocery store and pointed at a grayish-green flour on the shelf that had a faint sour smell. He asked the store owner, "Boss, how much is this?"
The shop owner was a middle-aged man who looked quite honest. Seeing the extraordinary demeanor of Qiao Yu and the other three, he immediately smiled and said, "This kind of flour costs five crystal cores for one ounce. If you want to exchange it for canned food or instant food, the price is negotiable."
"Then...what about this one?" Qiao Yu pointed to the flour on the side that looked relatively normal in color.
"The one or two dozen crystal cores."
Qiao Yu nodded, then continued to ask: "Boss, do you collect grain here?"
The shop owner's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he nodded quickly, "Yes, yes. Do you want to sell grain?"
Qiao Yu neither admitted nor denied it, but simply asked, "How much would you charge for better quality flour and rice?"
The shopkeeper considered it for a moment, then cautiously asked, "How about... one ounce and seven crystal cores?"
Seeing that Qiao Yu didn't answer and even frowned slightly, the man panicked and gritted his teeth, raising the price: "Eight crystal cores for one tael! No more!"
Without waiting for Qiao Yu's reply, he put on a bitter face and said, "Look, this small business of mine is not easy. You can't let me not even make enough to cover the monthly rent, right?"
Qiao Yu smiled after hearing this, but didn't say anything final. "Okay, let's go back and take a look. If there's any surplus food, we'll bring it over and sell it."
"Hey! Okay, okay!" The owner nodded hurriedly and enthusiastically escorted the five people out the door.
Qiao Yu and his companions randomly asked around at a few more stores, and the prices they got were all pretty much the same, but some of the stores said that if the quantity of goods delivered was large, they could give them some snacks for free.
After leaving the store, Cheng Sinian whispered to Qiao Yu, "Why? Do you want to sell grain?"
The market was crowded with people, and there was no telling if there were any hearing-enhanced psychics. Qiao Yu didn't dare to say much, so he simply raised an eyebrow and gave a vague, off-topic answer: "Let's first look at the monthly rent for the shops and see which one is more cost-effective."
Cheng Sinian understood. Qiao Yu was trying to figure out whether directly supplying grain or renting a shop to sell it himself would make more money.
Yu Qingchuan didn't really care about the grain sales issue. He just frowned as he thought about the prices and muttered to himself, "One ounce of moldy flour costs five crystal cores?! This is too expensive..."
The small vendor only rents two crystal cores a day!
"No way." Qiao Yu shrugged. "Scarcity makes things valuable. You haven't even seen the water yet!"
The implication is that the price of water will be higher.
After the end of the world, there are only two ways to obtain drinking water: one is to rely on water or ice-based aliens to produce water, and the other is to rely on rain from heaven.
However, nature-type anomalies are rare, and even if there are water-type and ice-type anomalies, they may not be willing to produce water or ice every day.
For example, Qiao Yu.
She would rather go out and explore the world than be locked up in the base every day to produce ice.
So to put it bluntly, there is actually only one way for humans to obtain water - rainfall.
However, the rain only falls once every year or two, and sometimes there is not a drop of rain for two or three years in a row, which is simply unable to meet human needs for water.
Therefore, after the end of the world, many people died of thirst due to severe dehydration; or they could not bear it and drank water from the wild for a long time and were alienated into alien species.
At that time, research institutes in major bases were trying every possible way to study how to purify water, but with little success.
Therefore, no matter which base it is, water resources are extremely scarce.
Qiao Yu still remembered that in his previous life in City B, a 500ml bottle of drinking water could even be sold at a sky-high price of 200 crystal cores, but it was still in short supply.
Yu Qingchuan fell silent after hearing this.
He is not a kind-hearted person, but every time he hears something like this, he can't help but think of his father.
If Dr. Yu were still alive, he would be very sad to see the current situation and would try his best to research how to purify the water source...
Qiao Yu didn't know what he was thinking, but he could see the struggle in his eyes.
She sighed softly and was about to say a few words of comfort, but when she looked up, she suddenly saw a face that was both familiar and unfamiliar.
——Tang Ran!
In this life, she actually survived? !
And came to G City like them?!
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